STAGE BEAUTY

ON THE SET

Every innovation has its victims, those whose livelihoods fall into sudden obsolescence when something better comes along. Consider carbon-paper manufacturers, for instance, or record executives. Or take the case of Edward "Ned" Kynaston, the hero of Richard Eyre's Stage Beauty, which Artisan Entertainment will release in the fall. Kynaston (Billy Crudup) is the toast of 1660s London, beloved for his portrayals of the great dramatic heroines, who, owing to a quirk of the law that's at least as homoerotic as it is chauvinistic, are invariably played by men. That all changes when the Restoration king, Charles II (Rupert Everett), bored by all-male Othellos and egged on by his stagestruck mistress, decrees that only women should be allowed to play female roles. An unfair practice has been abolished, but so has Kynaston's career, to say nothing of his romance with a kinky duke (Ben Chaplin) who was happy to date a drag-queen Desdemona but has little patience for a depressed, unemployable actor. To make matters worse, Kynaston's adoring wardrobe girl, Maria (Claire Danes), a 17th-century Eve Harrington who earned her chops in underground pub productions, has become the city's new favorite leading lady.

Based on a play by Jeffrey Hatcher (who also wrote the screenplay), Stage Beauty is a film about how people find themselves through love, set in an era when human sexuality was at least as negotiable as it is today. There's just one question: Who's going to pay $ 10 to see a witty, literate Anglo-American film about Shakespeare and love?

MICHAEL HOGAN